New Jersey fishermen hope to reel Supreme Court into a fight over federal regulatory overreach

The Supreme Court could pick up a case that challenges a nearly four-decade precedent that allows federal agencies to interpret the legality of their own regulations.

At the heart of the fishermen's argument is a regulation issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that requires fishermen to pay up to $700 per day to fund the salary of a contractor who monitors their boat to ensure compliance with environmental rules. Lower courts have rejected arguments that the rule goes too far by leaning on the Supreme Court precedent set in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. Patrick Hauf is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

That decision said that when interpreting federal rules, courts should show deference to those rules as long as they are not unreasonable and when they deal with ambiguity in the law.